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If I write a PR release on a site such as PRweb with anchor-text links that is picked up and published by other news sites, do the engines consider this duplicate content or additional, beneficial links?

I recently wrote a news release on PRweb that was picked up identically by 8 other news websites, with the same anchor-text links as the original. Is the reproduction of duplicate content and links across different websites like this to the benefit or detriment of SEO and ranking power? Some of the links are:

I don't think that it will hurt you... but I don't think that it will help much either.

If you write a release with yada yada yada text - meaning nobody is going to read your release and email their friends about it, then you can get some really low value links that will be worth even less over time from the press release sites and their scrapers. We don't spend any time on this activity.

However, if you have a press release or better yet an informative article that you believe lots of the people who read it will email to a friend or tweet or like... then don't waste it on the press release sites. Instead toss it into a couple of sites like reddit, slashdot or stumbleupon. If it is really good that will be like tossing gasoline on a fire. This is what we are shooting for. It takes really special content to succeed there but if you connect you can get 100,000 visitors in a day.... and that often translates into a lot of links, likes, tweets, etc.

Most important... when you use sites like reddit, slashdot and stumble the content remains on your own domain. You are not giving it away to feed competitors and create new ones.

This sounds like a great technique but the content has to be out of this world. I find it hard to believe I could ever get my client who sells industrial sized propane tanks this kind of traffic from one of those sites. I would think pop culture news and events would be best for this strategy no?

Those sites do work great for pop culture news... but I like some of Stephen's ideas. What happens if you shoot a tank.... what happens if one falls out of your truck.... what happens if one is in or next to a fire...

These are questions of curiosity and also safety.

Those might not earn the slashdot effect but a lot of people have wondered about those questions. I would try it. I think that such an article would be worth at least 1000 press releases and maybe 100,000.

You might be able to prepare a safety .pdf with an embedded link or two and offer it to other propane dealers or customers for use on their own websites. A video would be even better.

PRweb is a decent tool, the problem is that it aggregates the news, but you dont get any real value from the Press Releases on the major outlets. Do an actual search on the sites you are submitted to from PRweb and you wont find your releases in the results. This is a big complaing about PRweb. I recommend checking out businesswire.com for press releases. It is more expensive but offers real SEO benefits. I used PRweb for a year and a half here at my company and recently switched and saw immediate dividends.

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